She Hated Him! Nah, She Didn't
by h0lyheadharpies
Summary: She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate the way his hair would never lie flat, the way he strutted through the corridors with that stupid snitch of his. She wanted to hate how he and his obnoxious friends were always playing pranks on her, how their exchanges usually ended in her angrily rejecting him. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn't.


She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate the way his hair would never lie flat, the way he strutted through the corridors with that stupid snitch of his. She wanted to hate how he and his obnoxious friends were always playing pranks on her, how their exchanges usually ended in her angrily rejecting him. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn't.

Ever since the incident after their last O.W.L. exam, James hadn't gone out of his way to seek Lily's attention. He kept to himself and stuck with his mates like he always had, but they weren't as loud as Lily had remembered. Any pranks they pulled were miniscule.

While Lily still caught him playing with his snitch, she noticed that he no longer walked around acting like he owned the place. It appeared that his ego had deflated a bit, she noted when McGonagall paired them together for a project and he didn't bring up the fact that he was better at Transfiguration than her even once.

However, it was one morning in late March that she began to realise that he wasn't the arrogant bullying toerag that used to torment Lily and her friends in their first five years at Hogwarts. After receiving a particularly nasty letter from her sister at dinner, Lily had been rather upset and, after a short night of restless sleep, she decided to take a walk around the grounds to clear her mind. As the sun was only just beginning to rise, she'd made sure to be particularly quiet as she made her way through the corridors so as not to disturb anyone who'd likely be taking advantage of the weekend to get a few extra hours of sleep.

She hadn't expected anyone to be awake, so she was quite surprised by what she found when she reached the quidditch pitch. None other than James Potter was flying lazily through the air. She couldn't help but notice how graceful he looked as he looped through the sky, his normally messy hair swept backward by the wind. There was a look somewhere between peaceful and worried etched across his face and his cheeks were rosy from the cold temperature. Not wanting him to realise that she'd been watching him, Lily turned around, opting to take the long way down to the lake. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't get the image of James flying around the pitch out of her mind. It was the first time she realised that she found him attractive—in the physical sense anyways.

After that morning, she began to notice him more. She noticed the way he offered to escort a first-year Hufflepuff to class after a group of Slytherin boys had knocked her books out of her hands, the way he spent hours in the Gryffindor Common Room helping Remus catch up on the classwork he'd missed during the last full moon—yes, she'd figured out that his "furry little problem" wasn't a badly behaved pet rabbit. She noticed how what few pranks he and Sirius still pulled seemed to always be aimed at the Slytherins that targeted muggleborns for no good reason. She noticed the way his brow furrowed as he read about the attacks on the front page of the Prophet and how he seemed angry as he discussed them with his friends.

When McGonagall paired them together _again,_ he offered to help her practice for their next lesson because again, he knew that he was better at Tranfiguration than her and he could see her getting frustrated each time that she attempted to turn a dinner plate into a water goblet with no success. To James' surprise, Lily gratefully accepted his assistance and was really appreciative when her plate morphs into a goblet on just the third try after James had explained that all she needed to do differently was imagine the plate changing shape in her mind. After that day, a simple friendship seemed to form between the two. He would help her with Transfiguration and she would partner up with him in potions, insisting that he would probably manage to blow them all up one day if she wasn't there to stop him from dropping too many nettles into his cauldron.

They began to sit together at breakfast and she found herself rolling her eyes along with Remus as Sirius said something overdramatic. Their friends began to hang out together beneath that tree by the lake that she loved so much. She found herself watching him, hoping that he might sit near her in Charms or that he might be sitting near her favourite armchair when she returned from rounds. Somehow "Potter" turned into _James_ , and "Evans" turned into Lily—or Lils, as he affectionately began to call her.

Somewhere along the way, she realised that the boy she used to want to hate had become the boy that she couldn't help but fancy, but Lily Evans didn't mind one bit. In fact, she was just as pleased as he was she agreed that he could write her over the summer as long as he agreed to take her to Hogsmeade when they returned.

In just a year's time, the boy she wanted to hate became the man she was beginning to love and Lily Evans wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
